gmgiufr U im|r0&e all Classes interested in Soil Culture. 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MA N —Washington. 
ORANGE JUDD, A. IK., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS 10 CENTS. 
vol. xvr.— No. 8.] 
NEW-YORK, AUGUST, 1857. 
[NEW SERIES—No. 127. 
■v AsxajsuJEBsa* 
jSpSSusitiess Office at No. 191 Watei-st. 
jgpTor Contents, Terms, Ac. see p.ijfe 192. 
J5|F“Notestp Correspondents, pages 188-9. 
i^Tor Einsiness Notices, see page 189. 
KPFor Advertisements, seepage 191. 
WORK FOR THE MONTH. 
"An August day! a dreamy haze 
Films air, and mingles with the skies ; 
Sweetly the rich dark sunshine plays, 
Bronzing each object where it lies. 
Outlines are melted in the gauze \ 
That Nature veils ; the fitful breeze 
From the thick pine low murmuring draws. 
Trie bee is slumbering in the thistle, 
And now and then, a broken whistle— 
A tread—a hum—a tap—is heard.” 
Street is me of the happiest delineators 
)f rural scenes. One sees in his “ August” 
the veritable dog-days, and feels the mid-day 
stillness and the sweltering air, and hears 
the voices of insect life, made audible only 
by the silence of Nature. Every one re¬ 
sponds to the truthfulness of the pictures 
which the poet awakens in his mind by his 
word-painting. He sees the thick-leaved 
pine and the aspen standing like sculptured 
rock, the drooping leaves of the tasseled 
corn, the misty blue of the heavens, the dis¬ 
tant masses of cloud, fleecy, and motionless 
upon the azure background. The insects 
never seem more busy than at this season 
of the year. They are found everywhere 
in field and forest, wheeling through the air 
with dreaming murmur, or crawling in 
countless numbers upon the parched earth. 
This day of heat and drouth, so uncomfort¬ 
able to man, is a very paradise for insects, 
the high festival of the year. They are 
seen upon the stalks of grain and grass, upon 
leaf and bough, swinging in the summer air, 
or poised upon their wings, mocking the sun¬ 
shine with their glittering hues. While 
work is most a drudgery with man, and he 
literally eats his bread in the sweat of his 
face, it is all holiday with them, a perfect 
carnival of delight. 
“ All day they’re playing in their Sunday dress, 
When night reposes they can do no less. 
Then to the heathbell’s purple hood they fly, 
And, like to princes, in their slumbers lie 
Secure from pain, and dropping dews, and aV 
On silken beds in roomy painted hall. 
1 So merrily they spend their summer day, 
Or in the corn fields, or in new mown hay.” 
Why is it that tiny creatures swarm in 
such multitudes, and at times destroy the 
harvests of man 1 Always they prey upon 
his labors, and are a serious hindrance to his 
work. Whatever the defects of soil, and 
climate, they oppose no such obstacle to 
fruit growing, or to the raising of grain, as 
these insignificant depredators. What boun¬ 
teous harvests of wheat we might have, if 
the weevil, the midge, and the fly, could be 
consigned to their graves; what crops of 
hay, if the worms would let the roots of the 
grasses alone ! If we plant the plum on any 
but a clayey soil, the curculio lies in wait to 
puncture every fruit, and make it the cradle 
of his offspring. If we set out apple and 
pear trees, bugs beset the trunks, and soon 
cover them with scales as if they were mon¬ 
sters of the deep. The peac-h, the quince, 
the cherry, the currant, the gooseberry, has 
each its enemy, as if Nature had sent an ex¬ 
ecutioner with the sentence of death upon 
the track of every living thing. Why is 
there this seeming inconsistency in the ar¬ 
rangements of the creation. Why do we 
have these precious gifts bestowed, only to 
be snatched from us by these depredators ? 
We find in every department of nature a 
nicely balanced system, one race of crea¬ 
tures set over against another to keep each 
other within the limits which the Creator 
has assigned them, and at the head of this 
system is man. He has intelligence capable 
of understanding the designs of the Almighty, 
and of co-operating with the divine plans, or 
of thwarting them. In the sea, over which 
man has little control, the balance between 
the various tribes of fishes is kept up with 
little variation. If any race is materially 
diminished, it is that which visits the rivers 
and small streams for the purpose of depos¬ 
iting its spawn, and thus comes within the 
reach of man. The tribes that are voracious 
are less prolific, so that they are not unduly 
multiplied, and those which constitute the 
prey of others are made more abundantly 
fertile, and by instinct deposite their spawn 
in secure places. Thus, life in the sea 
moves on harmoniously, and no race be¬ 
comes extinct until it has accomplished the 
work assigned to it by the Creator. 
Man has interfered with the arrangements 
of Providence in regard to insects in two 
ways. Their supplies have been cut off, so 
that instead of feeding upon the forests and 
shrubs, they are now forced to feed upon 
cultivated crops. The forests once covered 
the whole country nearly, and every one 
must see the effect upon insect life of cutting 
off three-fourths or more of their natural 
pasture grounds. At the same time *hat 
there has been this reduction in the supplies 
of the insect tribes, the birds, their natural 
enemies, have been almost exterminated. 
They were designed to check the enormous 
multiplication of insects, and to be taken un¬ 
der the protection of man—for the sake of 
their aid in protecting him in the enjoyment 
of the fruit of his labors. Instead of re¬ 
ceiving this protection, many of the birds 
have been proscribed by law, and a price set 
upon the heads of crows and black-birds, as 
if they were the enemies of man. Vaga¬ 
bond boys have had a special commission to 
destroy them with powder and lead, as if 
they were doing the world a service. So 
greatly has the stock of birds been reduced, 
that cultivators are beginning to be alarmed, 
and in some of the States they have already 
secured wiser legislation. But it will take 
many years before the natural balance be¬ 
tween birds and insects can be restored. 
There are, doubtless, moral lessons under¬ 
lying these facts, but it is not our purpose to 
discuss them here. Meanwhile man must 
do tardily, and with infinite labor, what were 
better done by the myriad songsters of the 
grove and the meadow, until these have re¬ 
gained their place in our fields and gardens 
Man holds the balance of power, and may, 
through the birds, keep the insect tribes in 
check, so as to secure his harvests. 
The swallows and martins, that find con¬ 
genial society in man, should be encouraged 
to take up their abode around our barns and 
dwellings. They devour swarming insects, 
wasps, beetles and goldsmiths. It is esti¬ 
mated that a single bird will devour five 
thousand moths in a week. The sparrows 
and wrens prey upon insects in another stage 
of their existence, when they first come out 
of their eggs, and lurk within the buds, 
leaves, and flowers of plants. The thrushes, 
crows, blue-birds, jays, and black-birds de¬ 
vour butterflies, grasshoppers, crickets, lo¬ 
custs, and the larger beetles. In a season 
of three months, a single family of jay* 
will destroy at least twenty thousand in¬ 
sects. This gives us some idea of the effec¬ 
tual check which birds put upon the ravages 
of insects. Now in “ fly time,” while the 
whole air is redolent of their murmuring*, 
we would stir up the pure minds of our read 
ers to think of their depredations, and to de 
vise methods to destroy them. 
EXAMINE YOUR TREES 
for the evidence of their ravages. It is sur 
prising to see how ready farmers are to pay 
cash for trees, and to plant them well, and 
how careless they are of their after treat¬ 
ment. They take it for granted that the crop 
of fruit is sure, as soon as the tree is set. I 
is not so. The work is only well begun. 
Trees should be treated as personal friends, 
looked to, visited, and flattered with particu¬ 
lar attentions. Inquire after their health, and 
a response will come from the bark, the 
